'You're The Worst' Star Aya Cash On What Matters Most

In the middle of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation when she was 12, Aya Cash turned to her father and said “I’m going to do that someday.” She was so sure of herself in that moment, her father stopped in his tracks and was convinced his daughter had found her calling. (Not for time travel, but for acting.) And his prediction was right. “Even in my yearbook when I was 10, I said I wanted to be an actress or singer,” says Cash.

It took years of study, struggle and work. Cash attended the University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater BFA Actor Training Program and waitressed for years. But as Cash, who stars as Gretchen Cutler in the FXX dramedy You’re the Worst shares, “I actually got to be the thing I wanted to be when I was 10.”

Aya Cash

Shanna Fisher

Cash’s career has exploded. In addition to You’re The Worst, she will also appear on the second season of Joe Swanberg’s Easy on Netflix, and in the upcoming film, Game Over, Man! Most recently, she has joyously returned to her theater roots playing an uber smart and accomplished Washington lobbyist in the new play Kings, by Sarah Burgess (Dry Powder) at the Public Theater.

Directed by Thomas Kail (Hamilton, In the Heights, Dry Powder, Tiny Beautiful Things), Cash’s character Lauren is fiercely loyal to an incumbent Senator but also struggles with the great lengths it takes to get a candidate elected. The timely play which also stars Eisa Davis, Zach Grenier, Gillian Jacobs, and Rachel Leslie, offers insight into what transpires behind the scenes in politics. “Lauren is incredibly smart and a realist. She’s not afraid to say what she believes is the truth whether or not it’s ugly or not. And I’m attracted to that,” says Cash. “I don’t agree with Lauren on many things, but I do think she is very direct and honest even if her truths are not my truths.”

Cash shared her views about creativity, struggle and how money factors into it all.

Aya Cash and Zach Grenier in KINGS

Joan Marcus

Jeryl Brunner: What kept you going all the years when you worked as a waitress while trying to get acting jobs?

Aya Cash: It’s a combination of naiveté, hubris and having good artists around you, a good supportive community. I would call a teacher from the Guthrie when I was having a particularly bad day. Or I'd reach out to friends of mine who were struggling with similar things and were maybe a little further ahead.

I also did Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way many, many times. It’s an incredibly helpful workbook to make you feel ownership of being an artist when maybe your daily routine is eight to 10 hours a day waitressing and no art. It gives you permission to call yourself an artist and lead an artistic life. Especially when you don’t have access to that in your career.

Aya Cash and Gillian Jacobs in a scene from KINGS

Joan Marcus

Brunner: Don’t you come from a family of artists?

Cash: My mom also has a book Ordinary Genius that I found helpful which is also about the artistic life. It’s about writing, but these things are incredibly useful tools when you are not feeling connected to what you are doing. It’s also about living creatively and offers exercises. She has been an artist for so many years and is an inspiration to me.

My mother is primarily a poet, which is an incredibly hard career. People don’t monetarily value poetry and she has been a very successful poet. But that doesn’t necessarily mean cash. Growing up in a house of artists was very helpful. I really didn’t think, oh, I have to get a real job or make a real living. I always thought I’d be poor and that was okay because that is how my parents did it. You can be an artist without earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can be an artist at any level of income if you commit to the art.

Aya Cash and Zach Grenier in KINGS, written by Sarah Burgess, directed by Thomas Kail

Joan Marcus

Brunner: Can you talk more about the intersection of money and art?

Cash: One of the benefits of success allows you to see that it’s not at all about the money. It’s the easiest way to see that money doesn’t matter. It matters greatly until you have it. I live Upstate part-time. Many of my friends up there are artists. But that is not how they make their living and they have other jobs. Sometimes I feel like their art is cleaner because there is no pressure to fill their pocketbooks. It’s what they do because they love it purely.

The moment I realized this truly wasn’t about money is once I had it. There is a documentary called Happy which talks about how your happiness changes greatly from zero to $50,000. We need money to cover health, food and shelter. But then from $50,000 to $5 million there is zero difference in your happiness. But yet, we all can’t help but thinking, “but maybe if I just had…” I do not have $5 million. But I believe once you have some money you start to think, this is a nice lubricant. But this has very little to do with art or soul.

Brunner: Early in your career was theater your passion?

Cash: I grew up in the Bay Area doing shows at A.C.T. and driving up to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and doing Cal Shakes. That is where I thought I would be. I went to the Guthrie Program for theater, which does mainly classics. It did not prepare you at all for film and television. So I thought my dream world would be at Oregon Shakespeare Festival or doing great regional theater gigs or working at the Guthrie doing classical shows. My life took a different path. But the theater has always been the thing that makes me happiest and saddest. It's very painful when it doesn’t go well. But it feels good to try even when you fail.